Former grand jury worker gets prison for helping philandering husband

Andre Barbary and Tamika Jasper-Barbary, of Hollywood. A jury found Barbary… (Andre Barbary and his wife,…)

March 8, 2013|By Paula McMahon, Sun Sentinel

Andre Barbary liked to tell people that his drug-trafficking conspiracy had insider information – his wife, Tamika Jasper-Barbary, worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami scheduling witnesses for the top-secret grand jury hearings.

Any snitches who ratted him out to the feds would have to walk by his wife's desk or their name would appear on paperwork that she would see, he told his fellow drug dealers.

Jasper-Barbary, 37, wasn't an eager or major participant in the conspiracy, her attorney said, but she did pass along to her husband some sensitive law enforcement information that she found out at work. Her lawyer said it was a desperate bid to win back her husband's attention because he was was cheating on her -- with 10 other women, she later learned.

What Jasper-Barbary didn't realize at the time was that Drug Enforcement Administration agents were already investigating her husband and had deliberately fed her some fake information at work to see what she'd do with it.

The agents had tapped the couple's phones and hidden GPS monitors on their vehicles so they could follow their movements and listen in on every phone conversation they had.

When they had enough evidence, agents swooped in and arrested the Hollywood couple and several other suspects in January 2012, breaking up what they said was a major drug-trafficking operation that Barbary ran for years, selling cocaine and pain pills in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties and beyond.

Barbary went to trial on the allegations against him last year and was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

On Friday, a judge sentenced Jasper-Barbary to a year and a day in federal prison – the maximum allowed under the terms of her plea agreement with federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Florida, who handled the case to avoid any conflict of interest. Jasper-Barbary, who worked for 15 years in various secretarial roles for the U.S. Attorney's Office, was also fined $5,000 and she has until April 8 to begin serving her prison term.

"It's not acceptable for a person in her position to do what she did," U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenbaum said, adding that the crime was a very serious offense because it could have jeopardized the integrity of the justice system and undermined the public's trust.

In December, Jasper-Barbary pleaded guilty to conspiring to use a cellphone to further a drug-trafficking offense. She admitted that on two occasions in the fall of 2011, she told Barbary that a former associate of his was cooperating with law enforcement and that agents planned a drug raid in neighborhoods where her husband operated.

Jasper-Barbary apologized Friday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, mentioning how much she had enjoyed working with her former colleagues in the U.S. Attorney's Office. She was suspended after her arrest and resigned after pleading guilty.

"In my heart, I only blame myself," Jasper-Barbary told the judge, adding that she wished she'd had more confidence, strength and wisdom to get herself out of a bad situation.

Her lawyer, Scott Srebnick told the judge that Jasper-Barbary met her husband-to-be when she was just a teenager and they dated on and off for years. But for years, she refused to marry him because she knew he was dealing drugs, the lawyer said.

She encouraged Barbary to get out of the drug-trafficking business and get a legitimate job and eventually he became a bail bondsman and opened a trucking business. But soon after they married in 2010, she realized that he was still selling drugs.

In February 2011, Jasper-Barbary tried to find alternative employment because she was so concerned that her husband would get caught and she would be forced to leave her job with the U.S. Department of Justice, Srebnick said. She applied for other jobs, including one in a federal agency that wouldn't pose such a conflict of interest, her lawyer said, but she didn't get any of the positions she sought.

Srebnick said that part of his client's motive in telling Barbary the information she learned at work was to try to make him realize that he was going to get caught sooner or later and that their daughter, who's in middle school, would have to grow up knowing her father was in prison.

The couple's relationship is "over," Jasper-Barbary's lawyer wrote in court records.